But first, my night. I woke up often. Somehow, when the room temp drops to 69°, I feel chilly, no matter how many covers I'm under, and it wakes me up. Winter has been so long that I no longer hear when the furnace kicks on. Final wake-up was 7:15 but I was still in bed reaching for the remotes to turn off the TV and radio when they went on. I left the lights on and started my day as usual.

On the road a few minutes early, traffic was very heavy all the way, and the last bit was a mess, but I realized I could get into the garage from the right turn lane, what I consider the back way. Not as many free parking spaces as usual.

I grabbed a couple of waffle quarters and toasted croissants from the cafeteria, but they had the seating area closed for an event, so I took it upstairs, ate some sitting on a bench, took the rest to where Tall Guy had set me up. Today was spent testing an 85" TV from a foot away. They really should have set it up in a conference room and let me sit at the other end. Oh well.

Managed to get email to Kate, who works in the next building, a short skybridge away. We met at her nearest mini-kitchen at 4 and talked for half an hour. Mostly I talked, which I regret. When I finally asked about her family, she said her husband had died, and she has a Thai nanny taking care of her girls. So sad, he was a nice fella. That was the bad surprise, the good one is she looks fantastic, lost the weight she had put on after the girls were born. Another surprise is she is in charge of the whole Google Play department. Amazing.

Since I was already parked in the garage, I thought about charging the car after work, but it didn't need it. Taking the freeway, riding the brakes recharges the battery a lot more than waiting at stop lights on the side roads.

Detoured a few blocks to Safeway, and stocked up on frozen meals.

Home, in the mailbox were the meds I'd ordered from Kaiser. I met my new neighbors, they were cleaning up after the hired hands who have been rebuilding the house. 60-ish Chinese couple, though I think he's older than she is. I didn't catch his name over the blare of the fire trucks going by on the next street. It's one syllable, though. He said they plan to move in next Saturday. I don't think he meant this weekend.

The BF plants I'd staked were falling into the street again, so I added three more stakes and a lot of twist ties. I'm using plastic ones, I think I'll get bamboo ones from Lowe's or Yamagami's. The poppies look amazing, and are growing wherever the BFs are not.BFs up close

Poppies among the BFs, the long view

And more poppies.

All winter these have been growing, the flowers all came out in the last week. We've had some warm afternoons and lots of UV from the sky.

Inside, continued searching online for a fast wide angle lens I can afford. No such luck.

Read more on the Kindle app instead of watching TV over my Boston Market beef & pasta. Salvage-5: Another Mission (First Contact) by Brian K. Larson. It is possibly the worst written and edited free-on-Amazon book I have ever read. I haven't deleted it because the science fiction ideas in it are interesting, and there are new ones every few chapters. There is a typo or grammatical error in every chapter, two of his main characters are named Sam (one is Sgt. Samuels and the other is Lt. - upgraded to captain - Samantha), and he uses all the characters in the crew so interchangeably that none except the commander (who is lifted almost whole-cloth from A-team's (George Peppard) Hannibal Smith character) has a distinct personality.

Finished the last of the agar treats. Not sure if I'll make more this weekend.

Someone from Kaiser called, offering to hook me up with Dr. Ip for diabetes counseling. The woman was hard of listening - it did not register when I told her three times that Dr. Ip has been my diabetes counselor for 10 years. She said she would mark me down as "refusing" help. Cretin. My GP emailed, letting me know how bad my numbers were, I emailed back that now that I know I'll stop eating at my desk all day.

Plans for tomorrow:Back to the big building, Tall Guy has a circuit board for me to test, and maybe an STB. Friday.